Reality in Comic
- Halo
- Jun 20, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2020
W - Two Worlds (2016)
더블유
Starring: Lee Jong Suk, Han Hyo Joo
Seen: June 2020
I got this drama recommended by one of my friends from Hong Kong (yes, I have friends "everywhere") whose favorite Korean actor is Lee Jong Suk. She described the concept of the drama and I went straight home and looked it up. I got the same kind of immediate curiousity about this drama as I did when I first found Hotel Del Luna (review coming up!). A comic world parallel with a real one? Heck yes! I've never been a big comic reader myself, but I've always loved the style. I have only read a few mangas for example, but I love the layout of it so thinking about the contrast of a comic becoming an alternative reality had me caught from the first few minutes.
Disclaimer! This show is not for you if you are triggered by the subject of suicide. It occurs on several occasions in the story.
Storyline summary:
Oh Seong Moo is the author and illustrator of the famous webtoon W, a fictional world similar to the real one. Suddenly strange things starts happening out of the creators control, like if the parallell world started exisiting on its own. The storyline of the webtoon starts with Kang Cheol winning a shooting competition in the 2004 Athens Olympics. His newfound fame makes a turn when an unidentified killer shoots his entire family and Kang Cheol is framed for the murder. He spends a year in prison before he's deemed innocent and continues with attempting suicide due to the depression from loosing his family. At the last moment, he stops himself from falling over the bridge rail at Han River and decides to devote his life to crime-fighting and searching for the real person responsible for his family's death.
Ten years later, Kang Cheol is a multimillionaire and he's begun "Project W" in an efforts to catch the real murderer. One night, he receives a suspicious phone call and is severely injured on the rooftop of his penthouse by the same mysterious murderer from ten years ago. Then even stranger things happen when the daughter, Oh Yeon Joo, of the webtoon author finds herself suddenly inside the comic beside Kang Cheol's bleeding being. The story runs about the question whether he will be able to make his life 'A happy Ending'.
First impression:
I devored it, but I knew this was another of those dramas I wouldn't want to end. I couldn't watch it fast enough to know what happened next but at the same time I wished I could drag it out. I was so captivated by how the plot of the story started from the very beginning. It wasn't drawn out and slow, like you know those series where nothing happens until like the 5th-6th episode. Yeah, not W. Such a unique idea, so creative, different, the synonyms are endless with my love for things which break norms. I was also very impressed by whoever drew the comic characters, considering they do look exactly like the actors in sketch form. Very precise. Wish I could draw like that too!!
There's a lot of violence in this show, a lot of blood and a lot of gunshot injuries. I'm very surprised by that. Sure, every gunshot became a big deal but I feel like that was quite realistic. If you or your loved one got shot, you'd freak out too. Especially if it happened more than once.
Another thing which you see a lot of in this serie is kissing scenes. Even the actors comment in the behind the scenes documentary on how many kissing scenes this show has! It was very funny to see how embarassed they got by it while rehearsing :3 Yes, I know I mention kiss scenes in several reviews but it's because it's featured in such a different frequency in Korean dramas verses Western ones. Kissing is a very culture thing, if you think about it. Some cultures kiss cheeks as greetings, the amount per cheek might variate depending on where you are, some cultures kiss discreatly and preferably not in public, others don't care and allow it how and where ever and some don't allow kissing at all. It's a more important thing to the human species than a lot of people realize!
Two favorite scenes of mine from the drama, which has nothing to do with kissing or shooting someone in intention of killing them, are those starring Oh Yeon Joo's professor. I love him! His enthusiasm for W is the one of a true fangirl/fanboy, who have been inofficially declared by the society of Tumblr as a separate social society with their own culture, language, unwritten laws and rules. It's so common to see teenage characters being very passionate and excited over something, like a k-pop group or a specific celebrity, but here it's a grown man being completely distraught by the unforseen changes happening in W. I love it! The scene in the operation room where Yeon Joo and professor Park argues about Kang Cheol's love interest is hilarious. Absolutely genius! The café scene when the professor meets Kang Cheol in person is at the same level. I laughed out loud at those scenes. They brought the necissary comedy for this show not to get too brutal. Professor Park's enthusiasm and Soo Bong's nervousness (and ability to speak for like three minutes straight without drawing a single breath) are golden emotions which really separated the general "hard life, tough feelings, complicated situations and gosh darn it I got shot again I might die" emotions. Those were some scenes I enjoyed in a whole different way than the rest of the serie.
In contrast to laughing my head off, I felt so sad for Yeon Joo when she'd gotten stuck in the drama again but Cheol didn't remember her. When she broke down in complete defeat in Yoon So Hee's apartment and she admitted to being too hungry not to break in, that had me tearing up for her. Cheol just standing there admitting not to understanding what she was saying just made it sadder.
I like how Kang Cheol is more forward, he kisses her and it's no big deal. He's very chill and finds her weirdness, the first time she goes into the comic, plainly amusing. He jokes with her in an "adult" matter just to get her flustered, but the way she's so down to earth and doesn't get to overdramatically embarassed or shy is quite comforting. It's a different dynamic between these two love interests than other shows I've seen and I appreciated that a lot. In someway it felt more "usual" (I don't like using the word "normal"...) than scenes in the general aspects of dramas where it's always a big thing to kiss or get shy for the slightest thing. I see why these two became such a ship when the show came out~ It's so sweet in episode 13 when he calls himself Yeon Joo's husband to the police driving him to the hospital. It's really his way of saying that he loves her, even after forgetting about her and meeting her again more or less as a whole different person. The way his face slowly, but so explicably, crumples when he tells Soo Bong and Seong Moo that Yeon Joo died after he brought her to the drama was so marvalous. Not only because of Lee Jong Suk's impeccable acting, but it shows exactly how important she had become to him. All over again. It's the details that enhances the love~
I also really like the twist of the killer impersonating Seong Moo when he finds himself in the real world because of Kang Cheol unknowingly brings him there. It was predictable, or at least I could forsee it, but I still liked the turn of events. The fact that Seong Moo gave the killer his own face at all was very 'out there'. I understand his thought behind it, of course since he explains it to Soo Bong, and it feels like a thought that not everyone would've thought about themselves. I thought he'd just create a whole new character, but his reasoning with his own face being the only one Kang Cheol would believe was very thoroughly figured out. It made sense somehow, but it was still a bit unexpected in my opinion. He really knew the character he had created. Such an interesting idea, it completely changed the meaning of story.
It feels a little like conspiracy theories, thinking about what the "meaning" behind this drama might be. I don't think it has one, not really that clear of a message either but the twist of Seong Moo being the killer all along kind of gives me the idea of the will of love. Seong Moo created a cartoon character whom his daugther fell in love with by accident, and he didn't want that. He didn't want her inside the drama, understandably, and made himself the killer so that Kang Cheol wouldn't question the identity but also (I think) in an attempt to keep them apart. Kang Cheol knew, whether he remembered it or not, that Yeon Joo was Seong Moo's daughter - "the killer's" daughter. So when they realized that for Kang Cheol to get a happy ending to his story, the killer had to have a sad one, Seong Moo wasn't all that surprised. He knew it already, he expected it, he created it that way. Maybe so that he could keep his daughter safe, maybe to simply get done with Kang Cheol like he'd wanted for so long. I don't know, but it's interesting to think about. I might be completely wrong and just making up thoughts, but it does sounds a bit lunatic that a "person from the real world" and a "person from a webtoon, fabricated world" are in love in person... not a fan being in love with a character. As people. Humans.
I know that I'm far from the only one dependant on the subtitles, and I get the impression that they're generally pretty well translated. However, I did start to wonder when it came to one specific think in the end of the drama. In the scene where Cheol is speaking to /someone/ and finds out that Yeon Joo's in a coma from the gunshot wound in her back, the /person/ says (according to the subtitle) "she's not breathing on her own". When they cut to the next scene to see Yeon Joo in the hospital bed, she has an oxygen mask on. An oxygen mask assists with more air flow to a patient capable of breathing on their own but perhaps with less strenght to take deep breath or maybe cystic fibrosis (of course there are more reasons for oxygen support than those). If someone is completely unable to breath on their own they'd get a tube down their throat to force down oxygen into their lungs. It's called intubation. I don't know if the character actually said "she can't breath o her own" but if they did, I don't know if I should laugh, be annoyed or just concered about the pre-research or lack there of...
Cultural imput:
I admire details and one that I found in this drama was such a small but still question awakening one. In episode 6's hospital scene with Oh Seong Moo, you clearly see how the bedsheets of the bed is coloured and patterned. Also, they have thin duvets for the patients. I have never seen that before, not unless it's a patient more or less permanently living there and who has their personal belongings all in the hospital room. I'm used to the sheets being white and only having thinner fleeze blankets as covers - usually yellow of some reason. I've always wondered why that is though, why they're white and yellow. Is it because it's a simpler colour to find? Is it of practical reason such as easier see if a patient starts bleeding or something like that? Because it stains worse? I really wish I knew. In contrast I'd really like to know why that's not the case here, for this patient in the Korean hospital. Is it connected to being a VIP patient? Is it his personal sheets to feel more comfortable? Because when you see Kang Chul in the hospital bed when he's almost poisoned (spoiler!) the sheets are white even though he still has a thin duvet and not a blanket, and he was a VIP patient too. Hm.
After finishing this drama it definitely took place on my top five list, maybe even top three.
Haven't seen it? I definitely recommened it!
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